Outlaw- song
Monday, June 24, 2013
Faith and Circumstances
By M. Fontaine
Download Audio (10.9MB)
Different people often view situations in different ways, ranging from pessimistic to overly optimistic, and everything in between. There are many situations in which it really helps to have an abundance of faith and a good deal of positiveness and optimism. Realistically, we all have to continually deal with and handle problems, and if we don’t approach them with persevering faith, it’s easy to get dragged down and become negative.—Particularly when they’re difficult or serious problems.
So unless you take on an attitude of faith and try to see the bright side and the victories the Lord has available, even out of the seeming defeats, it can get you down. It’s not good for you spiritually to allow the problems of life to overwhelm your faith and get you discouraged and pull you down.
Some people have enough faith and natural optimism to do well when they’re in a positive situation. But when they’re often surrounded by difficult or seemingly impossible situations, they can end up getting dragged down. If they have a negative or pessimistic streak or attitude, the negative circumstances can play on that and tempt them to get on a negative channel.
When people have had a tendency to be negative or pessimistic all their life, it’s not usually the kind of thing where they can get a quick victory and suddenly become happy, full-of-faith people overnight. If that’s the way you are, the way you’ve been all your life, then those tendencies are usually pretty deeply ingrained in you, and it takes time to overcome them.
Our goal, as mature Christians, is not to be dragged down by circumstances or the problem situations others face, but to manifest faith and help to influence others with our faith. Being full of faith is what helps keep us from being constantly burdened and worried about the problems we or others face. It really takes faith to be able to rise out of the morass or abyss of our negative situations and help others do the same.
That’s another characteristic of having a lot of faith: you don’t worry so much about things. Some people seem to always be trusting the Lord. They hardly ever worry about things, but just figure that everything’s going to come out all right in the end, and it usually does! Because that’s the principle of faith. “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.”1
I think people who deal with problems all the time, as do missionaries on difficult fields or those spiritually counseling others, or those involved in working with the very poor and needy people in underdeveloped countries, have to be strong in faith. The people who actually have to take care of the nitty-gritty of the problems and emergencies and all the difficult situations that come up have to be pretty stable.
They can’t let things affect them too much. Unless you have strong faith and depend on the strength of the Lord, I don’t think too many people can take a barrage of negative circumstances and problems like that without being adversely affected by it. Problem situations need people who can be positive, inspirational, and full of faith.
If you show faith in people that they can handle their own problems, or that the Lord’s going to take care of them, and help them to overcome their discouragement, that will probably do more for them than anything else. People are responsible to try to resolve a lot of their personal problems themselves, with the Lord’s help; but they do need encouragement, and they often simply need to have their faith rekindled to just get up and try again.2
Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.―Nelson Mandela
You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.―Helen Keller
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.—Noam Chomsky
The Lord Is Greater than Our Circumstances
Everybody has something in their life that could seriously hinder and even cripple them if they allowed it to get them down and didn’t rise above it. But the wonderful thing about it is that the Lord has made a way for us to overcome those things, and in fact, He intends for us to! Because His help is available to us, circumstances—past or present—do not have to dictate our lives.
Look at all the men in history who rose above seemingly insurmountable odds to become great—overcoming poverty, physical handicaps, poor family backgrounds, etc. I’m sure we could each name a few examples of great men and women who had experiences or events in their lives that they could have easily become bitter about or allowed to overwhelm them, but they didn’t! They just fought harder to overcome those obstacles, and in so doing they became strengthened. Instead of complaining that life had given them a “lemon” or a bad deal, they made lemonade out of their lemons.
Because of their handicaps, these people rose higher than they might have otherwise risen. George Bernard Shaw, for example, was terribly shy, but because he was determined to overcome his timidity, he forced himself to speak publicly, joining debate societies and speaking at public meetings—in an effort to overcome the difficulty he had in speaking publicly. His weakness eventually became his strength as he became a brilliant and witty speaker and prominent writer.
Some people were born into great poverty, but fought to overcome it and to be able to do something in life in spite of it. Often because they’d had these problems, they turned around and were able to have sympathy and compassion on others who were poor, and worked toward making life better for them. For example, Booker T. Washington was born a poor slave, but after working hard in coal mines and salt mines, he became an educator and spokesman for African Americans, establishing a school so others could improve their lives.
Often people who have experienced difficulties in life and have overcome them are in turn able to be a great influence in helping others to have the courage and faith to overcome their difficulties. Their example is a proof to those who see and hear of their struggles and victories that it is possible to overcome great difficulties in life, and rise above seemingly impossible situations to triumph in the face of despair. Their victories are a testimony to us all that difficult circumstances do not have to overcome us, but we can rise above them if our heart and our attitude is right.
Jerome K. Jerome was a British writer whose father died when he was 12, and at 14 he had to go to work to support his mother and sister. His life got even harder when his mother died, but after many different jobs, the end result was that he became a writer—not of sad stories, but a famous humorist, writing humorous stories to encourage others. After such a hard beginning in life, he said, “It is from the struggle, not the victory, that we gain strength.”
This reminds me of a story of a young man who had grown up with a very severe case of stammering. He had been prayed for repeatedly, but the Lord had not seen fit to deliver him. Finally, this young Christian concluded, “I guess the Lord wants me to use my stammering for His glory, because when I witness to others, they feel so sorry for me, they always listen!” Even though he couldn’t get rid of the problem, he didn’t let it overcome him. He didn’t let it cause him to sink into withdrawal from others. Instead, he learned to use it for his advantage for God’s glory. He got to the point where he could even thank God for his affliction and see the good in it.
We who walk by faith certainly do not have to be confined or limited emotionally, mentally, or spiritually by the weights of our circumstances or our past. In fact, the Lord often allows those things so we will fight to get the victory over them, and the Lord intends for the difficulties we face in life to make us stronger. Instead of looking at obstacles or mishaps or bad experiences as terrible and drawbacks or handicaps, we can use those things to make our life better. We can see them as stepping stones for climbing upward. Then they don’t hold us back and pull us down, but we can actually use them to improve our lives and the lives of others.
Through this process, we can learn to fight with the Lord’s help and become stronger because of the struggle. If we didn’t have any problems to fight, we could be tempted to become complacent and meander along, which doesn’t generally build the strength of character that comes from fighting to overcome problems. We could miss out on seeing the beauty blossom in our lives that suffering often results in, or finding true friends in those who come to our side to help in our time of need. We wouldn’t experience the same compassion for others who have gone through the same thing or be able to “comfort them with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God,”3 and understand what they are going through and be able to help them to overcome.
God uses our trials and difficulties to teach us patience, trust, and faith in the Lord, and to help us to be more merciful on others.4
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.—Hebrews 12:1–3 NIV
Published on Anchor June 2013. Read by Bethany Kelly.
1 Mark 9:23.
2 Originally published June 1989.
3 2 Corinthians 1:4.
4 Originally published December 1992.
Download Audio (10.9MB)
Different people often view situations in different ways, ranging from pessimistic to overly optimistic, and everything in between. There are many situations in which it really helps to have an abundance of faith and a good deal of positiveness and optimism. Realistically, we all have to continually deal with and handle problems, and if we don’t approach them with persevering faith, it’s easy to get dragged down and become negative.—Particularly when they’re difficult or serious problems.
So unless you take on an attitude of faith and try to see the bright side and the victories the Lord has available, even out of the seeming defeats, it can get you down. It’s not good for you spiritually to allow the problems of life to overwhelm your faith and get you discouraged and pull you down.
Some people have enough faith and natural optimism to do well when they’re in a positive situation. But when they’re often surrounded by difficult or seemingly impossible situations, they can end up getting dragged down. If they have a negative or pessimistic streak or attitude, the negative circumstances can play on that and tempt them to get on a negative channel.
When people have had a tendency to be negative or pessimistic all their life, it’s not usually the kind of thing where they can get a quick victory and suddenly become happy, full-of-faith people overnight. If that’s the way you are, the way you’ve been all your life, then those tendencies are usually pretty deeply ingrained in you, and it takes time to overcome them.
Our goal, as mature Christians, is not to be dragged down by circumstances or the problem situations others face, but to manifest faith and help to influence others with our faith. Being full of faith is what helps keep us from being constantly burdened and worried about the problems we or others face. It really takes faith to be able to rise out of the morass or abyss of our negative situations and help others do the same.
That’s another characteristic of having a lot of faith: you don’t worry so much about things. Some people seem to always be trusting the Lord. They hardly ever worry about things, but just figure that everything’s going to come out all right in the end, and it usually does! Because that’s the principle of faith. “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.”1
I think people who deal with problems all the time, as do missionaries on difficult fields or those spiritually counseling others, or those involved in working with the very poor and needy people in underdeveloped countries, have to be strong in faith. The people who actually have to take care of the nitty-gritty of the problems and emergencies and all the difficult situations that come up have to be pretty stable.
They can’t let things affect them too much. Unless you have strong faith and depend on the strength of the Lord, I don’t think too many people can take a barrage of negative circumstances and problems like that without being adversely affected by it. Problem situations need people who can be positive, inspirational, and full of faith.
If you show faith in people that they can handle their own problems, or that the Lord’s going to take care of them, and help them to overcome their discouragement, that will probably do more for them than anything else. People are responsible to try to resolve a lot of their personal problems themselves, with the Lord’s help; but they do need encouragement, and they often simply need to have their faith rekindled to just get up and try again.2
Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.―Nelson Mandela
You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.―Helen Keller
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.—Noam Chomsky
The Lord Is Greater than Our Circumstances
Everybody has something in their life that could seriously hinder and even cripple them if they allowed it to get them down and didn’t rise above it. But the wonderful thing about it is that the Lord has made a way for us to overcome those things, and in fact, He intends for us to! Because His help is available to us, circumstances—past or present—do not have to dictate our lives.
Look at all the men in history who rose above seemingly insurmountable odds to become great—overcoming poverty, physical handicaps, poor family backgrounds, etc. I’m sure we could each name a few examples of great men and women who had experiences or events in their lives that they could have easily become bitter about or allowed to overwhelm them, but they didn’t! They just fought harder to overcome those obstacles, and in so doing they became strengthened. Instead of complaining that life had given them a “lemon” or a bad deal, they made lemonade out of their lemons.
Because of their handicaps, these people rose higher than they might have otherwise risen. George Bernard Shaw, for example, was terribly shy, but because he was determined to overcome his timidity, he forced himself to speak publicly, joining debate societies and speaking at public meetings—in an effort to overcome the difficulty he had in speaking publicly. His weakness eventually became his strength as he became a brilliant and witty speaker and prominent writer.
Some people were born into great poverty, but fought to overcome it and to be able to do something in life in spite of it. Often because they’d had these problems, they turned around and were able to have sympathy and compassion on others who were poor, and worked toward making life better for them. For example, Booker T. Washington was born a poor slave, but after working hard in coal mines and salt mines, he became an educator and spokesman for African Americans, establishing a school so others could improve their lives.
Often people who have experienced difficulties in life and have overcome them are in turn able to be a great influence in helping others to have the courage and faith to overcome their difficulties. Their example is a proof to those who see and hear of their struggles and victories that it is possible to overcome great difficulties in life, and rise above seemingly impossible situations to triumph in the face of despair. Their victories are a testimony to us all that difficult circumstances do not have to overcome us, but we can rise above them if our heart and our attitude is right.
Jerome K. Jerome was a British writer whose father died when he was 12, and at 14 he had to go to work to support his mother and sister. His life got even harder when his mother died, but after many different jobs, the end result was that he became a writer—not of sad stories, but a famous humorist, writing humorous stories to encourage others. After such a hard beginning in life, he said, “It is from the struggle, not the victory, that we gain strength.”
This reminds me of a story of a young man who had grown up with a very severe case of stammering. He had been prayed for repeatedly, but the Lord had not seen fit to deliver him. Finally, this young Christian concluded, “I guess the Lord wants me to use my stammering for His glory, because when I witness to others, they feel so sorry for me, they always listen!” Even though he couldn’t get rid of the problem, he didn’t let it overcome him. He didn’t let it cause him to sink into withdrawal from others. Instead, he learned to use it for his advantage for God’s glory. He got to the point where he could even thank God for his affliction and see the good in it.
We who walk by faith certainly do not have to be confined or limited emotionally, mentally, or spiritually by the weights of our circumstances or our past. In fact, the Lord often allows those things so we will fight to get the victory over them, and the Lord intends for the difficulties we face in life to make us stronger. Instead of looking at obstacles or mishaps or bad experiences as terrible and drawbacks or handicaps, we can use those things to make our life better. We can see them as stepping stones for climbing upward. Then they don’t hold us back and pull us down, but we can actually use them to improve our lives and the lives of others.
Through this process, we can learn to fight with the Lord’s help and become stronger because of the struggle. If we didn’t have any problems to fight, we could be tempted to become complacent and meander along, which doesn’t generally build the strength of character that comes from fighting to overcome problems. We could miss out on seeing the beauty blossom in our lives that suffering often results in, or finding true friends in those who come to our side to help in our time of need. We wouldn’t experience the same compassion for others who have gone through the same thing or be able to “comfort them with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God,”3 and understand what they are going through and be able to help them to overcome.
God uses our trials and difficulties to teach us patience, trust, and faith in the Lord, and to help us to be more merciful on others.4
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.—Hebrews 12:1–3 NIV
Published on Anchor June 2013. Read by Bethany Kelly.
1 Mark 9:23.
2 Originally published June 1989.
3 2 Corinthians 1:4.
4 Originally published December 1992.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Mud and Palaces
By M. Fountaine
June 22, 2013
Do you ever wish that life could just be all those wonderful times when, in one way or many, your dreams are turning into reality before your eyes? Perhaps you’re learning new things or making progress in something that is important to you. Maybe finances are flowing in, or you are making connections with people who are hungry for spiritual truth, and purpose is pulsating through your life. You feel God’s warm sunshine filling you with a sense of being richly blessed. Even if it takes more effort than usual, the contentment and satisfaction of what is being accomplished through you is a thrill.
Though I’m sure we would all like to constantly enjoy times like these, life continues to move along, and we sometimes find ourselves having to brave the tumult of experiences that are harder to bear. What we have to face may try our patience and our faith. Finding a sense of value in what we are doing may seem elusive or even nonexistent. We may face dissatisfaction with ourselves or our circumstances if all of our attempts to do the right thing seem to end up caked in the mud of problems and troubles.
It’s easy under these circumstances to feel as if you’re abandoned or as if the Lord’s support and guidance is nowhere to be found. Our days can seem as hard to wade through as a mud pit. Our best efforts to do good seem to yield little or no results, and we feel like we’re sinking deeper into that miry hole of hopelessness.
But you can draw encouragement and motivation from the fact that you’re not alone. Many of God’s people from the Bible to the present spent time “in the mud” on their way to accomplishing important tasks that He had called them to fulfill.
Consider Paul. Here is a man whom many Christians look to as an example of invincible faith in the face of ongoing persecution and difficulties throughout much of his ministry. However, even though he was usually very positive in the face of his struggles, he must have had his share of “mud” times. One that comes to mind was the two-year period he spent back in his hometown of Tarsus.
In Damascus, after his encounter with Jesus and his subsequent conversion, Paul had burned his bridges to his past life. He’d thrown himself into the life of a disciple for Jesus. He’d given it his all, only to find that his passionate efforts and the turmoil that they evoked in many Jewish leaders had made him an outcast among his former Jewish colleagues. They were so enraged that they had assassins waiting to kill him before he could leave the city. Neither was he trusted by those he now counted as his brethren in Christ. His prior persecution of Christians caused many of them to doubt the sincerity of his conversion.
Abandoned and shipped off to his hometown,[1] I’m sure it must have been very difficult for him to avoid feeling that he’d failed somehow. But he didn’t give up trying to use the circumstances he found himself in, just because his witness there in Tarsus looked very small. He persevered with the little he could do for two years until the Lord sent Barnabas with the vision to spread the Gospel in Asia Minor and eventually throughout the Roman Empire.[2]
How about Elijah?[3] After his encounter with Queen Jezebel and King Ahab and predicting the drought and famine that was about to come on them for their sins, God sent Elijah to a remote valley to live next to a stream with no one to share God’s messages with. He probably felt pretty useless, sitting there with little more to do than skipping stones and remembering all he’d been and done up to that point. But it gets worse.
Try to imagine yourself in his circumstances. By this time he was probably itching to go and confront the king and queen with more messages from God, but his next assignment wasn’t the palace, nor challenging the prophets of Baal. It was the foreign town of Zarephath. No big witness, no crowds to inspire or enemies to overcome. Just a poverty-stricken woman and a child, with a hovel to share with him. How could he have fallen so far from what he’d been? Yet he obeyed and stayed faithful in spite of what must have seemed like total defeat.
He stuck it out through those lean times, and when the time was right, God called him to stand up in defiance of the hundreds of prophets of Baal. Calling fire down from heaven was more powerful than anything that God had done through Elijah before, but the end result wasn’t evident to Elijah while he was passing through his personal “mud” time of seeming uselessness. On the surface, everything appeared to be taking him in the opposite direction from what he wanted to do. Hiding away in another country must have made him look weak and cowardly. How humiliating that must have been. But when at God’s command he returned, in the power of God’s Spirit, it was apparent to all that God was doing the miracle.
It’s true that many great men of faith have had their moments when they were “flying high,” like Joseph with Pharaoh, or Elijah calling down fire from heaven, or Daniel in the king’s palace, but most of the time they were down there in the mud with everyone else, because that is where their faith was clearly demonstrated and strengthened.
One moment Joseph had been pretty much on top of the world, dreaming of even his older brothers bowing down to him.[4] The next he was waiting to be sold into slavery in a foreign land.[5] He eventually reached what he probably thought was the pinnacle of power, running the household of one of Egypt’s most prominent figures. But it was short-lived, as he found himself the victim of this man’s vengeful wife, who landed him in a prison cell for standing up for his convictions.
I can only imagine the depths of discouragement and defeat he must have faced. He looked like a total washout. But useless as he felt, he used what little he had to carry on doing his best, even if it was interpreting dreams for a mixture of criminals and some pretty unlucky souls like himself. He used what he had, down there in the “mud” of the prison, and one life that was touched in that place was eventually crucial in catapulting him into the position God had prepared for him as second in command in Egypt.[6]
The Lord’s power and love in His children’s lives has to be demonstrated in the worst of times as well as the best. It has to work in the mud, not just in the palace.
Sometimes those “mud” times may be preceded by what we might think is our greatest service to the Lord. But who can tell what the future holds? As someone has said, “If we’re not dead, we’re not done!”
Daniel[7] had stayed faithful in the face of many impossible situations and had proved God’s power to Nebuchadnezzar time and again. Yet he came to the point where his presence in the court of the new king, Belshazzar, was not welcome. But what looked like the end was only a time of preparation for something no one had expected. God stepped in to bring in a new world order, catapulting Daniel into a whole new task of mentoring the new Medo-Persian empire’s king, Darius.
What about Moses? Although God had allowed Moses to be raised in Pharaoh’s court for a reason, that wasn’t where his most important work was to be. Young and strong and confident, Moses was not yet ready for his “palace” time of being the instrument God would use to free His people.[8] God had to put him down in the mud of Midian, struggling for years in the wilderness, where he had to trust God for everything. But when you look at the man he became, old and stumbling in his words,[9] sent by God to live among the slaves in Egypt, but with the faith that God would fulfill His plan through him, you have the stuff of miracles.
Our “palaces” may not all look the same on the outside. In Moses’ case, it seems that his “palace” was the fulfillment of his heart’s desire to free his people from slavery. All that responsibility and the many struggles involved in leading God’s people might not sound like our idea of a “palace,” but God sees the desires of our heart and has promised to fulfill them if we’ll commit our ways to Him. What could be better than that?
And what about Jesus? He certainly had “mud” time! Here is the God of the universe, setting aside the glories of heaven to face the frustrations, the pain, the sorrows of our existence, forgoing His unlimited power to do all that He had previously done. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”[10] He spent most of His time among the poor, the sick, and the outcasts, because that was where His light was most desperately needed. It opened the door to our understanding the depths of His love for us.
Have you found yourself struggling through one of those “mud pits,” wondering why God would uproot you from some valuable things you were doing and put you face down in the mud or in a place that could hardly seem more like a prison cell if it had physical bars restraining you? Perhaps you are passing through one of those “prophet moments” in which He is just getting you ready for something that is going to reverberate in the hearts of others and whose echoes will carry on into eternity. Walking by faith only comes into full view when walking by sight is no longer an option.
If you’ve ever felt like things in your life have gone so wrong that God could no longer rescue you and use you for something He calls great, just remember what King David said. He’d done some terrible things, yet he knew that in his repentance he’d never be abandoned by the divine love that held on to him through everything.
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”[11]
God’s examples of those He calls great all had one thing in common: they were determined to stay faithful through times when they couldn’t see the Lord’s plan for them. They each had their unique experiences that were designed by the Lord to help them develop a strong, godly character. Perhaps they had to learn humility, like Joseph, or to just obey in faith no matter how impossible something appeared to be, like Elijah. In Daniel’s case, one of the things God seemed to be teaching him was that as long as we are in this life, He has a purpose for us here, and we never fully know what the future holds.
Jesus works in each of our lives in a tailor-made way because no two people or the lives they live are ever exactly the same. Whatever the present and future hold for you, remember that you have His promise that He will walk through it all by your side, whether in the palace or the mud.
[1] Acts 9:22–31.
[2] Acts 11:25–26, 13:1–3.
[3] 1 Kings 17,18.
[4] Genesis 37:9–11.
[5] Genesis 37:28.
[6] Genesis 39–41.
[7] Daniel 5, 6.
[8] Exodus 2:10–15.
[9] Exodus 4:1–14.
[10] Matthew 8:20 NIV.
[11] Psalm 139:7–12 NIV/NAS.
Copyright © 2013 The Family International.
June 22, 2013
Do you ever wish that life could just be all those wonderful times when, in one way or many, your dreams are turning into reality before your eyes? Perhaps you’re learning new things or making progress in something that is important to you. Maybe finances are flowing in, or you are making connections with people who are hungry for spiritual truth, and purpose is pulsating through your life. You feel God’s warm sunshine filling you with a sense of being richly blessed. Even if it takes more effort than usual, the contentment and satisfaction of what is being accomplished through you is a thrill.
Though I’m sure we would all like to constantly enjoy times like these, life continues to move along, and we sometimes find ourselves having to brave the tumult of experiences that are harder to bear. What we have to face may try our patience and our faith. Finding a sense of value in what we are doing may seem elusive or even nonexistent. We may face dissatisfaction with ourselves or our circumstances if all of our attempts to do the right thing seem to end up caked in the mud of problems and troubles.
It’s easy under these circumstances to feel as if you’re abandoned or as if the Lord’s support and guidance is nowhere to be found. Our days can seem as hard to wade through as a mud pit. Our best efforts to do good seem to yield little or no results, and we feel like we’re sinking deeper into that miry hole of hopelessness.
But you can draw encouragement and motivation from the fact that you’re not alone. Many of God’s people from the Bible to the present spent time “in the mud” on their way to accomplishing important tasks that He had called them to fulfill.
Consider Paul. Here is a man whom many Christians look to as an example of invincible faith in the face of ongoing persecution and difficulties throughout much of his ministry. However, even though he was usually very positive in the face of his struggles, he must have had his share of “mud” times. One that comes to mind was the two-year period he spent back in his hometown of Tarsus.
In Damascus, after his encounter with Jesus and his subsequent conversion, Paul had burned his bridges to his past life. He’d thrown himself into the life of a disciple for Jesus. He’d given it his all, only to find that his passionate efforts and the turmoil that they evoked in many Jewish leaders had made him an outcast among his former Jewish colleagues. They were so enraged that they had assassins waiting to kill him before he could leave the city. Neither was he trusted by those he now counted as his brethren in Christ. His prior persecution of Christians caused many of them to doubt the sincerity of his conversion.
Abandoned and shipped off to his hometown,[1] I’m sure it must have been very difficult for him to avoid feeling that he’d failed somehow. But he didn’t give up trying to use the circumstances he found himself in, just because his witness there in Tarsus looked very small. He persevered with the little he could do for two years until the Lord sent Barnabas with the vision to spread the Gospel in Asia Minor and eventually throughout the Roman Empire.[2]
How about Elijah?[3] After his encounter with Queen Jezebel and King Ahab and predicting the drought and famine that was about to come on them for their sins, God sent Elijah to a remote valley to live next to a stream with no one to share God’s messages with. He probably felt pretty useless, sitting there with little more to do than skipping stones and remembering all he’d been and done up to that point. But it gets worse.
Try to imagine yourself in his circumstances. By this time he was probably itching to go and confront the king and queen with more messages from God, but his next assignment wasn’t the palace, nor challenging the prophets of Baal. It was the foreign town of Zarephath. No big witness, no crowds to inspire or enemies to overcome. Just a poverty-stricken woman and a child, with a hovel to share with him. How could he have fallen so far from what he’d been? Yet he obeyed and stayed faithful in spite of what must have seemed like total defeat.
He stuck it out through those lean times, and when the time was right, God called him to stand up in defiance of the hundreds of prophets of Baal. Calling fire down from heaven was more powerful than anything that God had done through Elijah before, but the end result wasn’t evident to Elijah while he was passing through his personal “mud” time of seeming uselessness. On the surface, everything appeared to be taking him in the opposite direction from what he wanted to do. Hiding away in another country must have made him look weak and cowardly. How humiliating that must have been. But when at God’s command he returned, in the power of God’s Spirit, it was apparent to all that God was doing the miracle.
It’s true that many great men of faith have had their moments when they were “flying high,” like Joseph with Pharaoh, or Elijah calling down fire from heaven, or Daniel in the king’s palace, but most of the time they were down there in the mud with everyone else, because that is where their faith was clearly demonstrated and strengthened.
One moment Joseph had been pretty much on top of the world, dreaming of even his older brothers bowing down to him.[4] The next he was waiting to be sold into slavery in a foreign land.[5] He eventually reached what he probably thought was the pinnacle of power, running the household of one of Egypt’s most prominent figures. But it was short-lived, as he found himself the victim of this man’s vengeful wife, who landed him in a prison cell for standing up for his convictions.
I can only imagine the depths of discouragement and defeat he must have faced. He looked like a total washout. But useless as he felt, he used what little he had to carry on doing his best, even if it was interpreting dreams for a mixture of criminals and some pretty unlucky souls like himself. He used what he had, down there in the “mud” of the prison, and one life that was touched in that place was eventually crucial in catapulting him into the position God had prepared for him as second in command in Egypt.[6]
The Lord’s power and love in His children’s lives has to be demonstrated in the worst of times as well as the best. It has to work in the mud, not just in the palace.
Sometimes those “mud” times may be preceded by what we might think is our greatest service to the Lord. But who can tell what the future holds? As someone has said, “If we’re not dead, we’re not done!”
Daniel[7] had stayed faithful in the face of many impossible situations and had proved God’s power to Nebuchadnezzar time and again. Yet he came to the point where his presence in the court of the new king, Belshazzar, was not welcome. But what looked like the end was only a time of preparation for something no one had expected. God stepped in to bring in a new world order, catapulting Daniel into a whole new task of mentoring the new Medo-Persian empire’s king, Darius.
What about Moses? Although God had allowed Moses to be raised in Pharaoh’s court for a reason, that wasn’t where his most important work was to be. Young and strong and confident, Moses was not yet ready for his “palace” time of being the instrument God would use to free His people.[8] God had to put him down in the mud of Midian, struggling for years in the wilderness, where he had to trust God for everything. But when you look at the man he became, old and stumbling in his words,[9] sent by God to live among the slaves in Egypt, but with the faith that God would fulfill His plan through him, you have the stuff of miracles.
Our “palaces” may not all look the same on the outside. In Moses’ case, it seems that his “palace” was the fulfillment of his heart’s desire to free his people from slavery. All that responsibility and the many struggles involved in leading God’s people might not sound like our idea of a “palace,” but God sees the desires of our heart and has promised to fulfill them if we’ll commit our ways to Him. What could be better than that?
And what about Jesus? He certainly had “mud” time! Here is the God of the universe, setting aside the glories of heaven to face the frustrations, the pain, the sorrows of our existence, forgoing His unlimited power to do all that He had previously done. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”[10] He spent most of His time among the poor, the sick, and the outcasts, because that was where His light was most desperately needed. It opened the door to our understanding the depths of His love for us.
Have you found yourself struggling through one of those “mud pits,” wondering why God would uproot you from some valuable things you were doing and put you face down in the mud or in a place that could hardly seem more like a prison cell if it had physical bars restraining you? Perhaps you are passing through one of those “prophet moments” in which He is just getting you ready for something that is going to reverberate in the hearts of others and whose echoes will carry on into eternity. Walking by faith only comes into full view when walking by sight is no longer an option.
If you’ve ever felt like things in your life have gone so wrong that God could no longer rescue you and use you for something He calls great, just remember what King David said. He’d done some terrible things, yet he knew that in his repentance he’d never be abandoned by the divine love that held on to him through everything.
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”[11]
God’s examples of those He calls great all had one thing in common: they were determined to stay faithful through times when they couldn’t see the Lord’s plan for them. They each had their unique experiences that were designed by the Lord to help them develop a strong, godly character. Perhaps they had to learn humility, like Joseph, or to just obey in faith no matter how impossible something appeared to be, like Elijah. In Daniel’s case, one of the things God seemed to be teaching him was that as long as we are in this life, He has a purpose for us here, and we never fully know what the future holds.
Jesus works in each of our lives in a tailor-made way because no two people or the lives they live are ever exactly the same. Whatever the present and future hold for you, remember that you have His promise that He will walk through it all by your side, whether in the palace or the mud.
[1] Acts 9:22–31.
[2] Acts 11:25–26, 13:1–3.
[3] 1 Kings 17,18.
[4] Genesis 37:9–11.
[5] Genesis 37:28.
[6] Genesis 39–41.
[7] Daniel 5, 6.
[8] Exodus 2:10–15.
[9] Exodus 4:1–14.
[10] Matthew 8:20 NIV.
[11] Psalm 139:7–12 NIV/NAS.
Copyright © 2013 The Family International.
Palestinian leader faces stark choices
By Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, AP, Jun 21, 2013
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)—Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is being propelled toward a stark choice that could come as soon as next week, define his legacy and set the course for his people in a decades-old conflict with Israel.
Abbas’ aides fear he’s being pushed by the U.S. into dropping his conditions for negotiating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That includes a stop in Israeli settlement construction or acceptance that the basis of a future border is Israel’s frontier before it captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is returning next week for meetings with Abbas and Netanyahu, his fifth since taking office this year. It’s not clear if he’ll present U.S. ground rules for negotiation at that time. The sense in Palestinian leadership circles is that there is no significant pressure on Netanyahu to adopt the framework for talks accepted by his predecessor and that a high-stakes choice cannot be delayed much longer.
At the heart of the Palestinian dilemma is that despite the American eagerness for talks and their own desire to end Israel’s 46-year-old occupation, they have low expectations of negotiations with Netanyahu. Most Palestinians consider the Israeli leader a hard-line ideologue who intends to drag out the process and never agree to anything close to terms they could live with.
Israel’s current leaders “never believed in the two-state solution … and will do everything on the ground to make it impossible to achieve,” said Abbas aide Nabil Shaath, a veteran negotiator with Israel.
Public opinion complicates the situation: Fifty-six percent of Palestinians oppose a return to talks under Israel’s terms, said Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, citing results from a yet-to-be-published survey. Shikaki’s polls are based on more than 1,200 respondents, with an error margin of 3 percentage points.
Netanyahu has said he supports the idea of Palestinian statehood, but stripped of east Jerusalem and key areas of the West Bank, and with a series of restrictions—parameters the Palestinians reject and which fall far short of previous Israeli proposals under Netanyahu’s predecessors.
Kerry’s peace proposal is expected to include financial aid to the Palestinians, security guarantees to Israel and assurances to the Palestinians that talks will be substantive.
International Mideast envoy Tony Blair warned this week that if Kerry’s mission fails, the window of opportunity for a deal “could close forever.”
Such warnings have been sounded repeatedly over 20 years of intermittent negotiations, but there’s a growing sense that the door may really be closing.
U.S. mediation is key to success, but presidents from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush and now Barack Obama have held off any serious push until their second terms, when they were less concerned about re-election. If Kerry fails, the next opportunity might only come around in eight years.
By that time, a partition of the land may no longer be possible. Nearly 600,000 Israelis already live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and Netanyahu has refused to stop building. Instead, there’s been a record number of housing starts in settlements this year and thousands more apartments are in the pipeline, some deep in the West Bank.
The Palestinians have said that without negotiations they would move against Israel at the U.N. Last year, the General Assembly recognized a state of Palestine in the 1967 lines, overriding U.S. and Israeli objections and giving the Palestinians a largely symbolic victory.
Earlier this month, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians might pursue war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court, in connection with settlement building, if negotiations don’t resume.
Going to the ICC is Abbas’ most popular option, even if Israel and the U.S. Congress retaliate by cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority, Shikaki said.
“Almost three-quarters (of respondents) say, go to the ICC, regardless of what happens, even if it leads to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,” Shikaki said. “It is one way they can shake the status quo, which they reject.”
The self-rule government, which feeds hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as the largest employer in the West Bank, would find it hard to survive without foreign aid and millions of dollars in taxes Israel collects for the Palestinians every month.
Shikaki’s think tank, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, recently hosted a dozen workshops with experts to look at the aftermath of a collapse of the self-rule government. Participants predicted tremendous poverty, mass emigration, chaos and a return to the gang rule of the previous decade.
Yet they also noted an upside, Shikaki said: “This then becomes an Israeli problem.”
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)—Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is being propelled toward a stark choice that could come as soon as next week, define his legacy and set the course for his people in a decades-old conflict with Israel.
Abbas’ aides fear he’s being pushed by the U.S. into dropping his conditions for negotiating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That includes a stop in Israeli settlement construction or acceptance that the basis of a future border is Israel’s frontier before it captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is returning next week for meetings with Abbas and Netanyahu, his fifth since taking office this year. It’s not clear if he’ll present U.S. ground rules for negotiation at that time. The sense in Palestinian leadership circles is that there is no significant pressure on Netanyahu to adopt the framework for talks accepted by his predecessor and that a high-stakes choice cannot be delayed much longer.
At the heart of the Palestinian dilemma is that despite the American eagerness for talks and their own desire to end Israel’s 46-year-old occupation, they have low expectations of negotiations with Netanyahu. Most Palestinians consider the Israeli leader a hard-line ideologue who intends to drag out the process and never agree to anything close to terms they could live with.
Israel’s current leaders “never believed in the two-state solution … and will do everything on the ground to make it impossible to achieve,” said Abbas aide Nabil Shaath, a veteran negotiator with Israel.
Public opinion complicates the situation: Fifty-six percent of Palestinians oppose a return to talks under Israel’s terms, said Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, citing results from a yet-to-be-published survey. Shikaki’s polls are based on more than 1,200 respondents, with an error margin of 3 percentage points.
Netanyahu has said he supports the idea of Palestinian statehood, but stripped of east Jerusalem and key areas of the West Bank, and with a series of restrictions—parameters the Palestinians reject and which fall far short of previous Israeli proposals under Netanyahu’s predecessors.
Kerry’s peace proposal is expected to include financial aid to the Palestinians, security guarantees to Israel and assurances to the Palestinians that talks will be substantive.
International Mideast envoy Tony Blair warned this week that if Kerry’s mission fails, the window of opportunity for a deal “could close forever.”
Such warnings have been sounded repeatedly over 20 years of intermittent negotiations, but there’s a growing sense that the door may really be closing.
U.S. mediation is key to success, but presidents from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush and now Barack Obama have held off any serious push until their second terms, when they were less concerned about re-election. If Kerry fails, the next opportunity might only come around in eight years.
By that time, a partition of the land may no longer be possible. Nearly 600,000 Israelis already live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and Netanyahu has refused to stop building. Instead, there’s been a record number of housing starts in settlements this year and thousands more apartments are in the pipeline, some deep in the West Bank.
The Palestinians have said that without negotiations they would move against Israel at the U.N. Last year, the General Assembly recognized a state of Palestine in the 1967 lines, overriding U.S. and Israeli objections and giving the Palestinians a largely symbolic victory.
Earlier this month, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians might pursue war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court, in connection with settlement building, if negotiations don’t resume.
Going to the ICC is Abbas’ most popular option, even if Israel and the U.S. Congress retaliate by cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority, Shikaki said.
“Almost three-quarters (of respondents) say, go to the ICC, regardless of what happens, even if it leads to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,” Shikaki said. “It is one way they can shake the status quo, which they reject.”
The self-rule government, which feeds hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as the largest employer in the West Bank, would find it hard to survive without foreign aid and millions of dollars in taxes Israel collects for the Palestinians every month.
Shikaki’s think tank, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, recently hosted a dozen workshops with experts to look at the aftermath of a collapse of the self-rule government. Participants predicted tremendous poverty, mass emigration, chaos and a return to the gang rule of the previous decade.
Yet they also noted an upside, Shikaki said: “This then becomes an Israeli problem.”
Learning From James Gandolfini's Death
By Jim Denison, Christian Post, June 21, 2013 (adapted)
James Gandolfini was known to the world as Tony Soprano, the mythical mob boss who won three Emmy Awards. The announcement of his death made global headlines yesterday. He was only 51 years old.
Gandolfini joined the ranks of Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Heath Ledger, all celebrities who were even younger when they died. On the other hand, Betty White and Clint Eastwood are still stars at the ages of 91 and 83, respectfully.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was 39 when he was assassinated. John F. Kennedy was 46 when he died; his son was 38. Abraham Lincoln was 56 when he was killed by John Wilkes Booth. None of them knew that morning that they would die that day.
The key to life is not its length but its depth. It’s not how many days we live, but how we live our days. Then, when we come to the last, our words can reflect our victory. Consider the last words of those who died in sadness with those who died in joy.
Winston Churchill said, “I’m bored with it all.” Novelist James Joyce asked, “Does nobody understand?” Writer Edgar Allen Poe prayed, “Lord help my poor soul.”
By contrast, George Washington said, “I die hard but am not afraid to go.” John Quincy Adams testified, “This is the last of earth! I am content.” Emily Dickinson stated, “I must go in, the fog is rising.” Minister Henry Ward Beecher observed, “Now comes the mystery.”
Louis XIV, King of France, asked onlookers, “Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?” Actually, we are. And we can each spend eternity in heaven if we wish—the choice is ours. As C. S. Lewis noted, there are two kinds of people in the world. Some say to God, “Your will be done.” To the others, God says, “Your will be done.”
Which have you said to Jesus? Queen Elizabeth I announced, “All my possessions for a moment of time.” But Woodrow Wilson could say, “I am ready.” Are you?
James Gandolfini was known to the world as Tony Soprano, the mythical mob boss who won three Emmy Awards. The announcement of his death made global headlines yesterday. He was only 51 years old.
Gandolfini joined the ranks of Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Heath Ledger, all celebrities who were even younger when they died. On the other hand, Betty White and Clint Eastwood are still stars at the ages of 91 and 83, respectfully.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was 39 when he was assassinated. John F. Kennedy was 46 when he died; his son was 38. Abraham Lincoln was 56 when he was killed by John Wilkes Booth. None of them knew that morning that they would die that day.
The key to life is not its length but its depth. It’s not how many days we live, but how we live our days. Then, when we come to the last, our words can reflect our victory. Consider the last words of those who died in sadness with those who died in joy.
Winston Churchill said, “I’m bored with it all.” Novelist James Joyce asked, “Does nobody understand?” Writer Edgar Allen Poe prayed, “Lord help my poor soul.”
By contrast, George Washington said, “I die hard but am not afraid to go.” John Quincy Adams testified, “This is the last of earth! I am content.” Emily Dickinson stated, “I must go in, the fog is rising.” Minister Henry Ward Beecher observed, “Now comes the mystery.”
Louis XIV, King of France, asked onlookers, “Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?” Actually, we are. And we can each spend eternity in heaven if we wish—the choice is ours. As C. S. Lewis noted, there are two kinds of people in the world. Some say to God, “Your will be done.” To the others, God says, “Your will be done.”
Which have you said to Jesus? Queen Elizabeth I announced, “All my possessions for a moment of time.” But Woodrow Wilson could say, “I am ready.” Are you?
Effectual Fervent Prayer
By Corrie ten Boom
A 50-minute talk from Corrie ten Boom with thoughts on many aspects of prayer, casting one’s burdens on the Lord, and humorous and faith-building testimonies from her life. Audio quality dips at times; however, overall, worth a listen.
“There is nothing too great for God’s power and nothing too small for His love.”
A 50-minute talk from Corrie ten Boom with thoughts on many aspects of prayer, casting one’s burdens on the Lord, and humorous and faith-building testimonies from her life. Audio quality dips at times; however, overall, worth a listen.
“There is nothing too great for God’s power and nothing too small for His love.”
